Just made another loaf this morning. My wife and I think the NY Times recipe uses too much water. We used 1-1/2 cups plus 1 TBS instead of 1-5/8 cups. The dough was much easier to handle, and the bread was still absolutely delicious.

Old yeast can be a problem. We've had some pretty dense bread, especially the rye bread, if the yeast was even close to the expiration date.

If you plan to cruise in the tropics you might want a break maker aboard. This saves heating up the entire boat to bake bread. A couple of things you might want to consider when buying one:

-if you have an inverter, find a machine that will operate off your inverter. In marinas ours operates off shore power. At anchor it operates off the generator or off the inverter. Underway it operates off the inverter. These machines use far less energy than one might assume as the heating element is tiny and is only on for about 30 minutes. Most of the time the bread machine is idle and not consuming energy.

-make sure the machine also does a short cycle. Almost all machines today offer a shortened cycle for some types of bread, but make sure before purchasing one. Ours does the normal 4 hr process but also bakes a few recipes using only a 2 hr process. Saves time and battery usage.

When it isn't too hot to use the real oven, the bread machine also great for making dough for easy cinnamon rolls or pizza or foccacia. I cannot imagine cruising without a bread machine -- especially in the heat of the tropics. We have visited far too many places where the local breads were disgusting. The only caveat is that you will need real bread flour (strong flour to the Europeans) for a bread machine. Some people tell me that their bread machine works great with regular all-purpose flour, but we find the texture unpleasant. There is a big difference in the gluten content and quality between all-purpose flour and bread flour. Rarely one can find tiny containers of gluten that can be added to regular all-purpose flour and this results in bread that is almost as good as bread made from bread flour.

Real bread flour is sometimes hard to find when cruising. Stock up heavily when it is available and vacuum seal. Keeps for at least 3 years.

Judy
S/V BeBe

Thank you Judy, your last part on type of flour or added gluten came at a perfect time for me because I'm on the verge of buying my first bread machine and making my first (yeah, I'm one of those dumb bachelors that just bought store bread, no matter the hassle or staleness when cruising) loaf of bread. Perfect timing.

And since some are wanting a response from an electrical geek on the total power consumption, I can't improve on Sarafina's reply.

a first hand experience: we live a board now for almost 4 months, currently in the Bahamas and heading towards DR. We have a small Breadmaker from Target (50 bucks or so) and we are very happy. Its even our first machine of that kind. What we love is the quadratic shape - much easier to store! It runs fine from our 1000Watt Inverter but we use it more often when connected to shore or when the engine is running for longer. We still make bread the classic way from time to time but the breadmaker is a big plus to reduce heat and get a loaf quickly with less work.

I get now on thin ice and state that we Europeans are particular more picky with our bread quality . At least I found it difficult to find decent bread for our taste in the US and the Bahamas. The bread quality from the machine is very nice, and use of it is a breeze.
Would recommend to buy one....

A typical type 27 battery with full length lead plates is around 100 amp/hour or getting back to wattage, can store 12 volts X 100 amp/hr = 1.2 Kw/hr.

So, getting back to what Sarafina said about her cooking cycle that she correctly measured at 0.32 Kw/hr, for fresh backed bread, who could deny themselves for just 1/4 of what one group 27 battery has on tap?

It's a lot smaller than the ones we were previously looking at and of course, when you're living aboard it's all about the size and space! We can store it easily in the head when it's not in us, and it makes a great loaf, perfect in size for the two of us. With the Mr making sandwiches for work most days, we'll make two loafs a week.

The machine in the link is the exact one, however we got ours from Costco and I'm sure it didn't cost as much. We've only cooked plain white loafs so far but it can do most things even jam which I don't quite understand..

I am not a fan of bread machines, I hate the paddle dents in the bottom crust. For those of you in the tropics, who don't want to heat the cabin, with a pizza stone (or almost any unglazed tiles) you can cook bread in your grill with the lid closed. Pizza stones or tiles will make you regular oven cook better too. Don't forget the water though.

It's a lot smaller than the ones we were previously looking at and of course, when you're living aboard it's all about the size and space! We can store it easily in the head when it's not in us, and it makes a great loaf, perfect in size for the two of us. With the Mr making sandwiches for work most days, we'll make two loafs a week.

The machine in the link is the exact one, however we got ours from Costco and I'm sure it didn't cost as much. We've only cooked plain white loafs so far but it can do most things even jam which I don't quite understand..

yup great machine - its exactly the same as ours from target - as said aprox 50 us

I have just started using a Black&Decker all in one bread maker,it's around 12 years old and i gotta say,,this is one Nifty machine, does it all, and does it good.
My favorite is the Cinnamon raisin bread,,lots of recipes included.
Not sure what kind of power draw it has but well worth considering.
You should be able to pick one up at a second hand store for around $10-$20

__________________
"The Truth Shall set you Free....But First it will Piss You Off"

Sorry but the discussion of amp/hr is not correct. The measure of battery capacity is amp-hr, not amp/hr. If a battery can store 100 amp-hr and the battery is 12 volts, then it can store 1200 watt-hr (that's 1200 volt-amp-hr). If your electrical device draws 500 watts, you can run for 2.4 hr. This of course doesn't take into consideration that your batteries become worthless at some point when the voltage drops too low and that you'll ruin some batteries if you draw them down too low.

Using watt-hr allows you to do calculations without correcting for voltage differences; the voltage is in the calculation of the number of watts required by a device. This is particularly important when you are talking about using a breadmaker that is 120 volts off batteries through an inverter. However, in boating it is common to use amp-hr in calculations which assumes that everything is 12 volt. You will find this to be true in nearly every calculation of battery capacity needed on a boat. In these calculations it is assumed that all devices are 12 volt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deckofficer

I've just read through a lot of posts about electrical power, some have it right, some a bit confused. This should help when calculating energy usage and storage.

First, the watt is the unit of work, so makes no difference about what voltage as to energy usage.

Just remember that tasty PIE P(power in watts)= I (current in amps) X E (electromotive force in volts)

So just use algebra to solve for different unknowns P=I X E or E= P/I etc.

Now on to storage

A typical type 27 battery with full length lead plates is around 100 amp/hour or getting back to wattage, can store 12 volts X 100 amp/hr = 1.2 Kw/hr.

So, getting back to what Sarafina said about her cooking cycle that she correctly measured at 0.32 Kw/hr, for fresh backed bread, who could deny themselves for just 1/4 of what one group 27 battery has on tap?